6 ROCKIES ROAD TRIP
My expert guide and driver for the entire journey is a gregarious and chatty Métis man named Joe Urie . He maintains a running narrative on our multi-day journey , his own life story blending seamlessly with our surroundings . Crossing a river of significance , he remarks , “ This is the blood in my veins .” Speaking about the wildlife around us , he notes , “ Animals are our brothers and sisters , they taught us how to hunt , and what plants are medicinal .”
On our first stop , deep inside Banff National Park and very close to the townsite , in a forested area called Cascade Ponds , I take a medicine walk . A guide named Jordan tells me that his grandmother was a medicine woman . I ’ ve always been a bit of a city kid , seeing forested areas as just “ the woods ” and never able to identify individual plants or trees with any certainty .
But as we move along undulating pathways , Jordan opens my eyes . Pointing out a stand of aspen , he explains that they share one huge root system . The bark can be used as sunscreen , or even as yeast for beer and bread . But the spruce is even more important : “ It serves as a grocery store , a pharmacy , a hardware store .”
In the past , the roots were used in the construction of canoes and the sap , when boiled , was used as glue . It could also be used to help the healing of wounds . Made into tea , the needles are packed with vitamin C . “ One cup can contain as much as five oranges ,” Jordan shares , noting that Jacques Cartier , the famous explorer , along with his men , were saved from scurvy when Indigenous peoples showed them the restorative power of the spruce .
Heading into town , I marvel at the power of the Bow Falls . Roaring in the shadow of the famous Banff Springs Hotel — the country ’ s most famous mountain chateau since it opened in 1888 — Marilyn Monroe immortalized these cascades in her 1953 film , River of No Return .
Just a few steps away , at the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum , a Blackfoot guide wearing intricate beadwork and an impressive belt buckle — a perfect synthesis of the West — walks me through the displays , sharing personal stories along the way .